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Crime

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Crime and its impact on public safety, public health, and economics are universal concerns. RAND research has informed criminal justice policy development at local, state, and national levels in the United States and Europe, particularly in the areas of juvenile crime, violence, and substance abuse, and has explored a range of topics from the drug trade and "insider" crimes to sexual assault and the cost-effectiveness of crime prevention.

After shootings, there is inevitably public debate over gun safety, constitutional rights, police tactics, terrorism, race, and politics. But these discussions rarely focus on a common factor among the perpetrators: a history of violence against women.

Billions of dollars are spent worldwide on the rollout of police body cameras. There is an urgent need to understand whether the cameras help police and the public, and under what conditions they work best.

The UK's Home Office commissioned the development of a new training package and standard of practice for the use of stop and search. As the program is rolled out nationally, officers need to receive consistent and persuasive messages about the purpose and goals of the training.

This report presents findings from the process evaluation of the College of Policing's Stop and Search Training Pilot, produced by RAND Europe, in partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Oxford.

The Chicago Police Department's predictive policing program didn't work. To achieve even a 5 percent drop in the city's homicide rate, enormous leaps in both prediction and intervention effectiveness are necessary.

Drug dependence imposes significant costs to society and traditional criminal justice responses like imprisonment do not reduce crime. More quality research on alternative sanctions could help police, prosecutors, and judges expand their options while helping users get treatment.

Predictive policing — the use of computer models to identify areas or people at greater risk of being involved in a serious crime — is yielding results for police. How authorities plan to respond to the data is key.

RAND Europe was commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council to explore the European illegal arms trade, with focus on the role played by the hidden web in fuelling and/or facilitating such trade.

This study aims to undertake a more comprehensive mapping of the availability and use of alternatives to coercive sanctions in EU member states, to handle drug-related crime. The research is being conducted by RAND Europe in collaboration with Professor Alex Stevens for the European Commission DG Justice.

When considering the costs of crime, policymakers and the public typically think about the price of housing prisoners, not the judicial costs. The costs to taxpayers of prosecuting, defending, and adjudicating crimes can vary widely, from $200 to $400 for a motor vehicle theft to $22,000 to $44,000 for a homicide.

This study aims to map alternatives to coercive sanctions (ACS) for drug law offences and drug-related crimes that are available under the law in each EU member state and describe the use of these sanctions in practice.

Respondent-driven sampling -- a peer-driven method of recruiting hidden populations -- can be used to create a representative sample of a drug market's users; the sample can then be surveyed to discern the effects of a Drug Market Intervention.

Each year, loss due to scams in the UK is in the range of £1.2 to £5.8 billion. To combat this scourge, the National Trading Standards Scams Team needs more support, both financially and legislatively.

Fotolia Background Mass marketing fraud (MMF) is broadly defined as a misleading or deceptive business practice in which uninvited contact and false promises are used to con people out of money. These could include lottery and prize draw scams, inheritance scams, get-rich-quick schemes and the selling of bogus ...

Nearly all of the participants in this study of trans feminine individuals in Lebanon had experienced gender identity discrimination; more than half reported condomless receptive anal intercourse with male partners in the past three months.

When considering the costs of crime, policymakers and the public typically think about the price of housing prisoners, not the judicial costs. The costs to taxpayers of prosecuting, defending, and adjudicating crimes are part of the dollar impact, and can show the potential savings from crime prevention.

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Adjunct Staff

Eric Helland is an adjunct economist at the RAND Corporation whose research focuses on law, economics, and regulation. His recent work has been on expert witness testimony, securities litigation, auto safety, and medical malpractice. He is working on a study on the impact of judicial pay on…

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